247 of men; which are, truths that recommend themselves to an enlightened reason: and of these rational evidences there is no lack to accredit the testimony of Baron Swedenborg.' Upon the whole, I trust, that all the Candid and Reflecting will agree with me in the conviction, that Swedenborg, by the non-performance of miracles, has in no degree weakened his claims to attention, but that he would have weakened them much more had he wrought the most "notable" ones. Even under the Mosaic law, abounding, as that dispensation did, with outward wonders, the performance of them is never laid down as among the credentials of a prophet; while, on the other hand, their exhibition by false prophets is spoken of as possible and probable: "If there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods which we have not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the voice of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams."+ Thus the knowledge of God, as revealed, of course, in his Word, is spoken of as the only infallible touchstone. So in Isaiah: "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because they have no light in them." To the same purpose is the wise answer of Abraham in the parable: "They have Moses and the prophets let them hear them.-If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." And the Lord himself: "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me.-Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me for he wrote of me." It is to this testimony *See also some remarks upon the unsatisfying nature of the evidence from miracles in the preface to "The Plenary Inspiration," &c. I had there said, in reference to those defences of Christianity which build chiefly on that evidence, that they "are more adapted to silence than to satisfy even an ingenuous inquirer." The observation has been cavilled at by some of the Reviewers; but I have since had the satisfaction of finding precisely the same idea, in nearly the same phraseology, expressed by Mr. T. Erskine, in his very popular work, “Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the truth of the Christian Religion, "We generally find," says that amiable writer, "that the objections which are urged by sceptics against the inspiration of the Bible, are founded on some apparent improbability in the detatched parts of the system. These objections are often repelled by the defenders of Christianity as irrelevant; and the objectors are referred to the unbroken and well-supported line of testimony in confirmation of its miraculous history. This may be a silencing argument, but it is not a convincing one." (P. 200, Ed. 1823.) 1 Deut. xiii. 1, 2, 3. Ch. viii. 20. § Luke xvi. 29, 31. that Swedenborg appeals. As the " harbinger" of the Lord at his first advent preached of, and pointed to, the Word made flesh and they who thence were led to Jesus acknowledged, that, though "John did no miracle, all things that he said of this man were true;" so does the Herald of the second advent point to the Lord in his Word; and they who, guided by his directions, seek him there, will assuredly find, that, though Swedenborg did no miracle, all that he has said of the presence of the Lord therein, in the power and glory of its spiritual sense, is true also. And the one is as great a divine discovery as the other. As it was impossible for John, without illumination from above, to have known in his true character the Word in person,so it was impossible for Swedenborg,without illumination from above, to have known the true character of the written Word of God,-to have seen how it makes a one with the living Word himself; being a derivation from him in the inmost of which he is, and by the opening of the internal sense of which he is bringing himself nearer than ever to mankind, and granting to them a nearer access to him. It would be idle, I admit, to talk in this manner, if the views of Scripture given in the writings of Swedenborg differed not from those of commentators in general,-if they contained nothing beyond what learning and study and piety might discover: but if they exhibit far more than this; if they present the Word in a light completely new and transcendantly glorious; if they prove that it includes throughout a regular spiritual sense, which, without superseding that of the letter, immensely exalts and digni fies the whole, displaying it to the enchanted eye of reason as well as of faith as the very Divine Truth and Wisdom,―as, without a figure, the Word of God indeed; then surely it will be conceded, that flesh and blood could not have revealed this unto him, but he must have received it by special illumination from the living Word himself. No miracle can rival, in the clearness of the conviction produced, the revelation and rational apprehension of previously hidden truth: and he who enjoys this interior conviction of truth would not feel it more strongly, were he to behold the most stupendous miracles performed by the Human Instrument of conveying it. Many superior minds have seen, that miracles have no tendency to enlighten the understanding; and the remark of that extraordinary genius, Rousseau, was not less profound than it was brilliant, when he said that, he believed the gospel itself, not on account of its miracles, bnt in spite of them. SECTION V. A HUMAN INSTRUMENT NECESSARY, AND THEREFORE RAISED up. PART IV. The Charge against Swedenborg of Mental Derangement, Considered; With some Minor Objections. We now come to the grand objection of all against the illustrious Swedenborg, and his claims to be accepted in the character he assumes. The common cry, re-echoed from mouth to mouth, and retailed from pen to pen, is, that he was mad; an aspersion which, notwithstanding some totally false and merely calumnious tales have from time to time been fabricated to support it, literally rests upon no foundation whatever, but that on which the same imputation was thrown against an infinitely greater character. "He hath a devil and is mad: why hear ye him?"* Such was the salutation with which the Divine Truth, in person, was assailed, when "he came unto his own, and his own received him not." The Lord Jesus himself was reproached as insane by the leaders of the professing church of that day and even his own kindred according to the flesh had so little conception of his true character, that when he began to display it by mighty words and works," they said, He is beside himself. And they went forth to lay hold on him,”+ for the purpose of putting him under restraint, as a person of disordered mind. So little capable, when in the darkness of its sensual perceptions, is the human mind, of distinguishing the most exalted wisdom from insanity! No wonder then that the proclaimer of genuine truth now should be derided with similar reproaches. "The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord; if they call the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household!" Such were the prophetic warnings by which the Lord prepared his disciples for the treatment they were to expect: and the experience of distant ages has proved their truth. When the apostle pleaded the cause of Christianity before Agrippa and Festus, the Roman governor replied with the exclamation, " Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad:"§ and so, in our times, a man who has been favoured with a degree of illumination as much superior to that of modern Christians in * John x. 20. † Mark iii, 21. ‡ Matt. x. 24, 25. § Acts xxvi. 24. 66 general as was the divine knowledge of Paul to the darkness which then overspread both Jews and Gentiles, is assailed with the same cry, and, while his attainments in science are admitted, it is pretended that his studies had ruined his faculties. By the Candid and Reflecting, a sufficient answer to this charge will be found in his writings, which, though a period of twentytwo years intervened between the publication of the first of his theological works and the last, exhibit the most perfect consistency of sentiment throughout, while they are all written with a regard to the most orderly and methodical arrangement, and display in their author the most acute powers of reason and extraordinary strength of memory; which last faculty is evinced by the numerous references to other parts of his works which abound in them all. These, certainly, are qualities which do not usually attend the ebullitions if insanity. Indeed, it is impossible to pretend to find in the composition and manner of Swedenborg's writings any tokens of derangement: even adversaries admit that they exhibit plain marks of a very superior mind and they only pronounce him mad, because his works contain such statements as they might naturally be expected to contain, should his claims to acceptance, as a heavencommissioned teacher, be true.* *I had here, however,almost forgotten the Author of the Anti-Swedenborg; for he, willing to be thought a more profound critic than any who had gone before him, objects to the manner, as well as the matter, of Swedenborg's writings. He complains that there is in them "an almost endless tautology and repetition either of expression or meaning," which, he adds, "is to me, another plain indication of the author's disorered intellects. "(P. 7). But his proof of the charge is not a little curious. "Lest," he says, "I should be charged with misrepesentation respecting those repetitions and tautologies, I will give one instance. No. 332, Memorable Relation, True Christian Religion,-No. 331, Memorable Relation, Conjugial Love. These two memorable relations, which I fiud in two different works, are word for word." Now repetition or tautology consists in repeating the same thing, in the same work, over again, in the same or in different words. To do this unconsciously, or without necessity, is certainly a mark of a weak head; but to indicate disordered intellects, it must be done in such a manner as to produce, not prolix exactness, but confusion. Not the least trace of tautologies and repetitions of either of these kinds, is to be found in the writings of Swedenborg. But in an extensive work it frequently becomes necessary to repeat something which has been said before, when it is to form the premises to further conclusions and in different works on similar subjects this is still more unavoidable. Such repetitions as these certainly exist in the writings of Swedenborg; and they evince, not the disorder, but the exactness, of his intellect. But to give, in Appendixes to different works, the same relation or discussion, not as forming part of the series of the work, but because the author deems it illustrative or important,-though it is a repetition, it hardly comes under the description of what is critically so denomi If Swedenborg really had the senses of his spirit so opened, as to be present with angels and spirits as one of themselves, in the same manner as is experienced by all men when they have finally quitted the terrestrial body, it is abundantly certain that, if he should relate what he witnessed, he must relate much which, to common apprehensions, must appear extraordinary, perhaps incredible. Now his adversaries in general only look into his works for such things as may serve to give a wrong impression. These they set forth as specimens of the whole, for the purpose of deterring others from examining for themselves; carefully suppressing those excellent and truly sublime and heavenly sentiments, upon numerous subjects of the first importance, which even they cannot help feeling, and half acknowledging, that those writings contain. Thus respecting some sentiments of our author, which an adversary cannot deny to be excellent, he has these remarks: "What the Baron says respecting truth and good, and especially what he says respecting faith and charity, [these are fundamental things, by the by,] as also his opinion respecting man's freewill and predestination, accords in general with my sentiments, and may perhaps be read with some advantage."* We here have, to be sure, an admirable specimen of what Pope calls to "damn with faint praise;" yet we may be satisfied that there must be something truly striking in what Swedenborg delivers on these subjects, to extort even such praise from a person determined, when looking at his excellences, to apply the wrong end of the telescope, while for discovering what might be distorted into blemishes, he uses the strongest magnifier he could find. Accordingly, he immediately adds, "But on these subjects the Bible may always be consulted with infinitely more success; therefore quit ting the Bible for Baron Swedenborg's works, is something like leaving good wine for mere water." Can any thing be more futile? Must not an adversary be sadly at a loss for an objec tion to offer such a one as this? All that has ever been written in illustration of the Bible, is, it seems, mere waste paper! nated it is rather a second edition of an isolated tract; and he who possesses both editions, seeing at once that they contain the same thing, will not read it again unless he wishes to do so. Now the example on which the writer rests his charge of tautology and repetition is one of this sort. It is an isolated relation given in the Appendixes to the chapters of two different works, because in the last of them, the author wished to collect together all that he had written of the kind. Thus this objector, when endeavouring to avert from himself the charge of misrepresentation, completely establishes it. * Anti-Swedenborg, pp. 7, 8. |